Former President George H.W. Bush responded Wednesday to allegations that he touched multiple women inappropriately, attributing the unwanted contact to his medical condition.
Two women accused Bush of groping them while they posed for photographs with the 93-year-old. Bush’s spokesman Jim McGrath responded by pointing out that Bush suffers from Parkinson’s disease and is confined to a wheelchair, putting him in awkward proximity to the lower waist of those he takes pictures with.
At age 93, President Bush has been confined to a wheelchair for roughly five years, so his arm falls on the lower waist of people with whom he takes pictures. To try to put people at ease, the president routinely tells the same joke — and on occasion, he has patted women’s rears in what he intended to be a good-natured manner. Some have seen it as innocent; others clearly view it as inappropriate. To anyone he has offended, President Bush apologizes most sincerely.
Actress Heather Lind furst accused Bush of inappropriate contact in a since-deleted Instagram post, which referenced a 2014 incident.
“When I got the chance to meet George H. W. Bush four years ago to promote a historical television show I was working on, he sexually assaulted me while I was posing for a similar photo,” Lind wrote in a post Tuesday, according to CNN. “He didn’t shake my hand. He touched me from behind from his wheelchair with his wife Barbara Bush by his side. He told me a dirty joke. And then, all the while being photographed, touched me again.”
Soon after the first allegation emerged, New York actress Jordana Grolnick told Deadspin the elder Bush groped her in a similar situation during a 2016 photoshoot.
“We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him,” Grolnick said. “He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, ‘Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?’ As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, ‘David Cop-a-Feel!'”
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